Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Mommie, there’s our house!

I will be cooking supper for the men’s Bible study this Thursday. Since I desperatly needed cooking supplies, the kids and I walked from our house across town (small town) to our local grocer. Avery, Jasmine, and Collin were overjoyed when I announced the upcoming plans while finishing feeding Titus his mid-morning bottles. Yes, I did say “bottles;” more on that later. The kids quickly picked up their toys, books, and animals. Either got their shoes themselves or brought them to me and then changed diapers. Avery kept saying, “I’m ready to go!” I kept telling him, “That’s nice. Thank you for getting ready, now wait for me.” 🙂 He probably said it a total of 6-7 times before I threatened no trip. He quieted down FAST! 😀 BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

On the walk there, the kids had to establish walking order, who would walk where, how fast, who would wear the kiddie harness, and/0r who would hang on to the stroller. Avery did pretty good staying ahead of Jasmine and away from the front of the stroller. Jasmine and Collin took turns being the slow ones; Collin the worst since it was his first time walking since last year he was riding with Cora. Cora just took it all in quietly from the front seat. Titus used the opportunity to achieve some very strenuous work: sleep. I intentionally took the least traveled roads for a couple of reasons: A.) today school got out early and I didn’t want to have to worry about teenage drivers around our precious munchkins and B.) I didn’t want to scare Collin and Jasmine too much with on-coming traffic. Avery is used to it since he and I walked A LOT when I was preggy with Jasmine and Collin.

At the store, Avery took it upon himself as the big boy helper and help push the mini cart around the store. Its almost as tall as Avery and has two plastic, blue food baskets on it. He completely enjoyed the responsibility. He did an awesome job steering, too. He only had a little trouble down the cereal aisle because of several display cases and a few big cases of cereal boxes waiting to be put away. As a treat for being awesome helpers in the store and because I knew I would have a revolt, I got them their own bottle of flavored water and a quick lunch to prepare at home: instant fully loaded mashed potatoes and two cans of Campbell’s Old Fashioned Beef Soup to put on top. My mom made that soup a lot when I was our kids’ age and enjoyed it; I was throughly pleased when they all gobbled it up, too. 😀

I can tell Titus has hit a growth spirt! He no longer is satisfied with 4 ounces of formula every hour hours, he has to have 5-6 ounces instead. But DON’T give it to him in a logical 8 ounce bottle! He doesn’t like them. He would rather have his little 4 ounce bottles from the hospital! Goof Ball! 😀 So, I have to warm up 3 ounces per bottle and then we have a very happy, full, contented baby. YAY!!!

While on bed rest back in November, Avery would ask me at least 1-3 times a day why I was always laying down on the couch. I would tell him, “because my tummy hurts;” which it did at the time! 😀 Collin, being my smart little wiper-snaper, decided to follow my example. He had an upseat tummy that day, so when I got up to go the bathroom, I returned to see him on the couch curled up in a ball. Both Mike and I told him to get down but he just grunted and gave us this cute pouty face. Next thing we knew, Collin had messed his diaper BIG TIME! Mike and I just started laughing, I changed Collin, snuggled with him as much as I could, then Collin was all better.